Just as human
by Quietlittlejerk
Summary: A Quilava considers times with his owner, and wonders what she is to him. Probably better than it sounds. PokemonXHuman


"This is speaking"

_This is thinking_

Disclaimer: I don't own $&#. Happy?

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BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…under normal circumstances, the incessant beeping of the heart monitor would have driven me off the deep end hours ago. Unfortunately, the circumstances were nowhere near normal, not even for us. But then I wouldn't know, my life hasn't been normal ever since I met her. I am a Quilava, and my name is unpronounceable in your tongue. Now, most humans call me Zack, a name given to me by my owner. I rather prefer it at this point. If you don't want my life story, you can just turn around and leave, because it more or less started with her. Her…She was, and is, named Anna, and I first met her as just a Cyndaquil. I was walking along the city in the dead of night, scarred out of my wits when someone tripped on me. I whirled around and, out of instinct, prepared to use ember on whoever did it; but I found myself facing a creature unlike any I'd ever seen before. She had long black hair, and ultra-fair skin. She wore coal-grey clothes, and had a red streak in her hair. For a moment, I assumed she was a Cyndaquil like me, until she began speaking in human tongue. "Sorry about that, Zack."

I was about to protest that I wasn't Zack, when she threw a strange red-and-white ball at me. It didn't hurt when it hit me, or when the red light came out; when I was in, that's when it hurt. I howled in agony as the strange mechanism began washing off my scent and forcing strange images into my head. I wrestled against it, but soon, all I could think about was the girl, and how I would never leave her. Then suddenly, in a flash, I was out again, the girl looking at me with an apologetic grin. "Like I said Zack, I'm sorry, but I had to make you mine."

My jaw dropped and I slowly shook my head in disbelief. _This_, I thought, _must be one of those crazy humans I've heard so much about_. I began to walk away, when a strange force began pulling me, like some invisible chain tied to my soul. I pushed forward, but the girl's voice wouldn't stop ringing in my ears, and her beautiful blue eyes floated above me like anvils. Suddenly, I could bare it no longer: I whipped around and shot back to her, jumping up into her arms and burring my face in her belly. In some strange, unfathomable way, I was so happy nothing had happened to her while I was gone. She giggled and knelt down, laying me on the ground. I was reluctant to leave her, her arms were cold as ice, and I wanted to make them warmer. "I guess you've never been trained before, Zack. My name is Anna."

She held out one of her pale hands, a gesture I recognized as a casual human greeting. I lightly laid one of my front paws in her palm, and her fingers closed around it, gently shaking it. Anna had apparently sensed that I didn't like the red and white thing (she later described it as a "Pokeball") and never bothered to put me back in. Instead, I just walked alongside her. When we walked, she would talk to me, and I would answer her questions. I soon got the impression she could understand me, so I decided to put it through an acid test. As she was making diner, I whispered "Anna's a-" "Finish that sentence and you die."

I gawked at how quickly she'd whipped around, but then grinned madly. "You can understand me!"

Anna looked at me like I was stupid. "Of course I can understand you," she said with a small grin, "just cause you're a Pokemon, that doesn't make you any less human."

What she said there has stuck with me for the rest of my life. I'm standing on my hind legs, so they're sore and shaking, but I don't care. My head is on the bed next to her arm, and my front legs are stretched as far as they'll go so my paws can grip her hand. Finally, I give up and climb into bed with her to rest my legs. As the blood returns to my front paws, still gripping her hand, I realize it's even colder than usual, so I do all I can think to do: I curl up against her chest and pull her arms and legs around me. I can't help but blush at our current closeness. I don't understand why: we've hugged many times, but no mater what, I always blush. My mind wandered back to the time we first hugged.

The Starmie and I had been fighting for twenty minutes, one of us was bound to get fatigued eventually. I was hurt bad, the Staryu and Horsie had roughed me up really bad, but I wasn't about to let this arrogant gym leader show up Anna. The red-haired girl smirked and ordered a water gun, this one I barely dodged! My breath was ragged, and my muscles felt like they could fall apart at any moment, but a deep rage welled within me. _"So what if you're back?" she had said, "You're just going to lose again, not just because of the type disadvantage, but because you're a lousy trainer!"_

I roared angrily at the memory and thundered forward, flames covering my body! At the last second, I leapt up and tumbled forward, the flames becoming a sphere of bloody hell! With a resounding crack, I landed right in it's center, deriving great pleasure from the creature bolting back into it's Pokeball, whimpering like an infant. Before I had time to think, Anna was on the field, and I was in her arms! "You did it, Zack. You won." She whispered in my ear, her forehead touching mine.

I was infinitely thankful for my coal black fur that hid the growing blush on my face. Anna was blushing too, but that was probably just from the heat of my face. That night, we slept in a set of bunk beds in the Pokemon Center, a welcome change from our usual woods ensemble, often not even including a tent. Despite this, however, the sandman felt no need to visit my bedside this evening, and so I lay in the dead of night, wide awake. _Why did I blush?_ I asked my mind over and over. No answer would come, though, so the question just floated above my head, a shimmering star of embarrassing moments in my life. Thoroughly annoyed, I did the only thing I could think of, and threw things at it. _Maybe her face was too warm, _I tossed half-heartedly, knowing the taunting response that would follow: _you run a stable internal temperature of 157 degrees Fahrenheit. Humans run a temperature of 98.2. Do the math._ I rolled my eyes at the sarcastic internal response, and fired another shot, this one more serious: _I could have been tired from the battle. _The response was in a more respectful tone, but there was something mocking, even pitying about it. _True,_ my mind replied, _but you never blushed after a hard battle before, what was different about this one. And don't say flame wheel._ After a few more attempts, including a debate about weather or not it could have been flame wheel, the demonic balloon still hung over me, shaking it's little backside and laughing at my confusion. At this point I was tired of dealing with it, so I resorted to throwing actual things at it. This awakened Anna, who yelled at me to shut it, then tumbled back into dreamland. I laughed lightly at the memory, Hoping another pleasant one would surface. What I got, was how this mess had started in the first place.

I had awoken that day, sensing something would go wrong. During breakfast, I mentioned this to Anna, who wrote it off as me still being a bit loopy from my recent evolution. I agreed with her, ever since I'd evolved, I'd been having senses of dread and waves of nausea at random moments. The sickness had left, but every now and again, I'd have this odd sense of fear, or bad things to come. These bad things never happened though, so I'd stopped paying attention to them. This sense of dread wouldn't go away though, and it made me extremely irritable. Climbing up a large cliff in the frigid cold was not a spirit lifter either: but I refused to let this on to Anna. One other change evolution had left me with, was an immense sense of pride, especially around Anna. It was as if one part of my mind said I had to prove myself to be worthy of her company, and at the moment, this part was the only one not preoccupied with the fear. Anna, as always, seemed to sense something was wrong, and turned towards me. "Zack, are you cold?"

"I'm fine," I grumbled briefly. The last thing I needed was to be forced to show weakness, forced by a GIRL no less! "Are you sure?" She whispered. "Because you look really cold."

"Well then you must need an eye doctor!" I barked, before stomping in front of her. I would lead, just to show her how little I needed her. When we neared the top, there was a spot of uncovered ice that seemed to be over a hole. I trotted over it, relishing the sound of Anna squealing in concern. "This just proves it," I sang triumphantly once I was over, "you might need me, but female trainers are a dime a dozen."

With that, I twisted my nose high in the air and was about to prance off, when a loud crack attracted my attention: for an instant, Anna was floating, then a scream like a banshee, and she was gone! I ran to the hole, and stared down to see her body at the bottom, mangled by the small hole's sharp icicles! I bounded expertly down, and gently nudged her with my head. "You're fine, right? That didn't hurt, right?" My voice started to quiver. "You…you're just gonna get up and laugh at me in a minute, right?"

When she still didn't respond, I realized this was trouble. When asked if she was lying, weather or not she was, Anna would always giggle and fidget, but she just lay there, stone cold. I shoved myself under her jacket to warm her up and howled for help! Rescue humans soon came and were going to carry her off, so I snuck in the ambulance with her. As we drove, all I could think about was how the last thing I'd said to her was that I didn't need her. Boiling hot tears ran down my face as I whispered in her ear, "don't die Anna. Your Pokemon need you, the humans need you…I need you. It'll be alright, you'll be okay, and we'll never be apart again."

I only wished so bad that it were true. My sharp ears picked up the doctors talking: "…orphaned at birth, this is a floating case. She has nobody and nothing to pay for her medical bills." "So what do we do about it, Bill?" "I guess we're just wasting our time and money. If she's better by tomorrow fine." "And if not…?" "We pull the plug, plain and simple."

That was too much, the dam broke. All the tears of anger, sadness, and even joy that I'd ever held in came pouring out right then. I buried my face in her chest, being as quiet as I could, for if I got caught, I'd be thrown out. I whispered her name, over and over, gently licking her stomach and nuzzling her chest. I would have sobbed myself comatose, had a small twitch not awakened me. I looked up and saw her hands twitching. Quickly, I crawled up to her chest, careful to not squash her, and looked at her face. It crunched up, loosened, and finally, relaxed as her blue eyes pried themselves open. "Anna…" I breathed, my eyes lost in hers. "What?" she growled painstakingly, "you didn't think I'd die in this hellhole, did you?"

A rush of adrenalin flew to my head, and my body reacted the one way it knew how; I threw my head forward and kissed her! After a few seconds, it occurred to me: this wasn't another Quilava I was kissing, or even another Pokemon, this was a human! Her smooth lips against my furry ones should have grossed me out, or at least scared the crap out of me, but it all felt so right, I didn't know what to do. My reaction to all these thoughts and hormones was decided for me, however, when she put one hand on the back of my head, and shoved me down. As soon as her grip loosened, I pushed myself into a sitting position and began whispering "I'm sorry" again and again. "Don't be," she whispered back, pulling me to her, "I wanted it…so bad."

"N-not that!" I sobbed, tears being shed anew, "I'm sorry for saying all that stuff, for doing all those things!" I leaned in against her, "I need you."

Anna just smiled a smile I couldn't quite decipher, and spun me around to hold me on her lap. After some comfortable silence, I whispered, "You should rest, you're still hurt."

"What, you didn't enjoy that?" She said with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Not sure how to respond, I just slid off the bed and murmured, "We shouldn't be this important to each other. It…it's not right."

She glared at me, I could practically feel her picking out the untruths in what I'd said. "You don't believe that, and I don't believe that, so why should we listen to it?" I just shook my head, and walked out the door. Soon I was at the outskirts of town, my feet were dragging, and my body ached, yet I went further. I would have expected the Pokeball's power to weaken with distance, but if anything, the urge to go running back got stronger. On the third day, I couldn't take it anymore! I went charging back, top speed all the way! I reached the town in a mater of hours, more than a few stitches in me, but it didn't mater, nothing mattered, I just had to get back. I flew through the hospital and into the room, and there she was. Her beautiful face was deluded by tears, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered but getting back! I leapt up into her lap and buried my face in her clothes. "Oh Anna…" I whispered, feeling her hands gently, almost disbelieving, lay around my waist as I pushed up and kissed her. I knew my lips kneading against hers should have made me physically ill, but I didn't care. "I love you!" She barked as soon as our lips parted. Before I could even think to change it, my response was spilling out of my mouth, "I love you too, Anna."

She smiled and we just lay together for a few moments. "Why did you leave, Zack?" The question made me start, and I whispered the truth, "I don't know…I guess I was scared of what people would think."

She nodded, and I acknowledged this to hopefully be forgiveness. "Why did you come back?" I giggled and murmured the first thing I thought of, "Damn Pokeball. That stupid thing did the same it did to me day one." She sat up and looked at me. "But, that can't be."

"Why not?" I asked, before she pointed me at a pile of red and white shards in the corner. "I annihilated it as soon as you left. It was only today that I decided to-" She shoved her hands in her mouth to shut herself up. I didn't need her to say it though. I'd noticed the knife she was holding to her chest when I came in, the knife that now lay on the food table. Later that night, we were both drifting off, and I looked at the knife with contempt. Looking around to make sure there were no prying eyes, I opened the window and pitched it out, before walking back to my new girlfriend and falling asleep in her arms.  
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Okay, so was it good, bad, horrible. Tell me or I'll send rabid monkeys out to get you! Flames are welcome if needed.

PS. What's a "Flame" exactly?


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